When the Whigs came into power by the election of 1840, President Harrison discussed the question of patronage and its abuse, not merely as tending to strengthen one political party against the other, but as building up the power of the Executive against the Legislative Department.
Blaine discusses President Harrison's views on the impact of patronage on political power.
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All these provisions are made to protect the States, not to authorize an attack by one part of the country upon another; to preserve the peace, and not to plunge them into civil war.
If this view of the subject be correct, as I think it is, then the Union must utterly perish at the moment when Congress shall arm one part of the people against another for any purpose beyond that of merely protecting the General…
If it be true that war cannot be declared, nor a system of general hostilities carried on by the Central Government against a State, then it seems to follow that an attempt to do so would be ipso facto an expulsion of such State from the…
The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers cannot be denied.
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